Cornelius looked at the table, the slab of peat there. “They dug it up where they were digging their peat,” said Cornelius. “They sent the child to fetch me. At least they had that much sense.”

Lacroix leaned over it. The peat was moist, dense, sticky black. And bedded into its surface was something else. Fibrous, whorled. He would have touched it but Cornelius stayed his hand.

“It seems to be an ear,” said Lacroix. “Is it an ear?”

“It is!” said Cornelius. “The ear of a Caledonian Achilles.”

“Achilles?”

“I mean it is ancient, Lovall. It is an ancient human ear. It heard the sea when the sea was new!”

Lacroix bent lower. Now he knew it was there it was unmistakable. An ear! For love of Christ. Black. Black leather. Black exactly as the peat but unmistakably human.

“And the rest?” he asked. “The head? The body?”

“Nothing,” said Cornelius. “It is an ear on its own. But the rest must be there, somewhere. I have persuaded the Mackinnons to suspend their digging. They are horribly reluctant but you can imagine the damage they could do with their spades. Damn it, Lovall, there is some man or woman in the ground and I must find them. I feel they are depending on me.”

“It is certainly a remarkable thing,” said Lacroix.

“Of course! Of course! And now you understand why I cannot go on a jaunt to Glasgow. The moment I’m gone the Mackinnons will dig again.”

“But your teeth?”

“I have the tincture. I do not need a surgeon now. Perhaps next year.”

“And what of Emily?”

“Yes,” said Cornelius. “That is unfortunate. I would ask Ranald to go but he will have duties here.”

“Then I will take her,” said Lacroix. He thought he heard Jane laugh. He looked at her; she wasn’t laughing. “I will take her,” he said, “if I have the family’s consent to it.”

“And if he operates?” said Cornelius. “This . . . ”

“Rizzo,” said Jane.

“You will stay with her until she can travel?”

“I will,” said Lacroix. He did not know how any of this sounded. He had been acquainted with the Frends less than a fortnight. A man who arrives on the back of a cow, who does not speak about his past. But Cornelius reached forward and seized his hands. He gabbled, was dewy-eyed, though it struck Lacroix that his offer was exactly what they had expected of him, that he had walked in on a piece of theatre and known his line.

“You had best go and tell her,” said Jane, cutting in above her brother.

“Do what?”

“Emily,” she said, and pointed with her chin to the kitchen door.